Towards the right formulation of a technical problem

Due to the growing interest in innovation issues, support for suitable problem definition is increasingly important and desired, focusing on the identification of the right direction of work without getting lost on useless roads [1]. This work presents a set of rules, conceived by the authors to better define the right reformulation of the initial problem. Most of the philosophical reflections about the concept used to build this procedure are presented. Particular attention is focused on the definition of the exact zone of the critical element to work on, in a specific and precise instant of time. Time and space ontologies, and an historical excursus about operative time, are accompanied by many technical examples in order to provide a deep awareness about classical problem solving steps, already present in ARIZ 85C but used in a different way.